Speakers

Richard Ford, a native of Jackson, has published six novels: A Piece of My Heart, The Ultimate Good Luck, Wildfire, and the Frank Bascombe trilogy, The Sportswriter, Independence Day (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Pen/Faulkner Award), and The Lay of the Land.  His short story collections are Rock Springs, Women with Men, and A Multitude of Sins.

James Kimbrell, a Millsaps graduate, has published two volumes of poetry, The Gatehouse Heaven and My Psychic,and translated Three Poets of Modern Korea. He has received a Whiting Writers’ Award, the Kathryn A. Morton Prize, and the Bess Hokin Prize.  He teaches at Florida State University and currently is the John and Renee Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi.

Ann Patchett has published five novels: The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician’s Assistant,  Bel Canto, which  won the Orange Prize and the Pen/Faulkner Award, and Run.  Her two works of non-fiction are Truth and Beauty and What Now? 

Elizabeth Spencer has published nine novels: Fire in the Morning, This Crooked Way, The Voice at the Back Door, The Light in the Piazza, Knights and Dragons, No Place for an Angel, The Snare, The Salt Line, and The Night Travelers. Her short stories have been collected in Ship Island and Other Stories, The Stories of Elizabeth Spencer, Marilee, Jack of Diamonds and Other Stories, and The Southern Woman.  She has also published a memoir, Landscapes of the Heart.

Alfred Uhry, a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, wrote the plays Driving Miss Daisy and The Last Night of Ballyhoo and the books of several musicals, including Parade and The Robber Bridegroom, adapted from Welty’s short novel.  He also wrote the screenplays of the movies Driving Miss Daisy, Mystic Pizza, and Rich in Love. He is the only writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony for best play, and an Academy Award for screenplay.